California AG Releases Recommendations for App Developers
App developers should attempt to minimize the surprises users face when it comes to the data collection and retention practices those apps employ, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a new report on mobile privacy (http://xrl.us/bn99ia). “This approach means supplementing the general privacy policy with enhanced measures to alert users and give them control over data practices that are not related to an app’s basic functionality or that involve sensitive information,” she said.
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In the report, Harris laid out best practices for app developers, app platforms and ad networks. App developers should review their data collection practices, collect only necessary data, develop a “clear, accurate and conspicuously accessible privacy policy” and employ “enhanced measures ... to draw users’ attention to data practices that may be unexpected and to enable them to make meaningful choices.” App platforms should educate users about mobile privacy and make apps’ privacy policies easily accessible through the platform, Harris said. Ad networks should develop their own privacy policies to share with apps and “move away from the use of interchangeable device-specific identifiers and transition to app-specific or temporary device identifiers."
Harris’s recommendations are a good attempt to collaborate with app developers, Jennifer Hanley, director of legal and policy at the Family Online Safety Institute, told us. Hanley called the report “easy to follow” and “a really good example of industry self-regulation.” The recommendations -- as opposed to a set of imposed regulations, which could “chill the ability of people to create content for kids” -- are a good example of government reaching out to industry members to find collaborative solutions, Hanley said. “The more [government and industry] can work with each other, the better it is for parents and kids,” she continued. As an attorney general concerned about online privacy, Harris “gets” the way industry members work, Hanley said: App developers “want to make sure they know what they need to do,” and Harris’s report provides those guidelines.
The report comes a week before the next round of the multistakeholder discussions on mobile privacy being hosted by the NTIA. According to an agency spokeswoman, the agenda for the Thursday meeting (http://xrl.us/bn99gv) has been set to focus on the code of conduct discussion draft from the Application Developers Alliance, American Civil Liberties Union, Consumer Action and World Privacy Forum, but can be changed, including adding the report from Harris’s office, at the request of the stakeholders. Participating stakeholders told us they expect the report will be discussed during next week’s meeting. Jim Halpert, counsel to the Internet Commerce Coalition and NTIA discussion stakeholder, told us he expects other stakeholders will cite the report, but it will not be adopted wholesale as a voluntary code of conduct by the NTIA stakeholders. “There’s a difference between best practices and a code of conduct that a company agrees to,” he said.